Our bowlers were clinical - Dravid

Rajasthan Royals' captain Rahul Dravid has said his bowlers' clinical performance was instrumental in their win over Pune Warriors on Tuesday.

"It was a very clinical performance, and hats off to my bowlers who did a fantastic job to restrict Pune to 125," Dravid said. "It was a good all-round performance by everyone, especially the bowlers who set the game up for us by making us chase only 125. If we had to chase anything over 150 it would have been a tough game.

"Good bowlers are the key, irrespective of whether they are fast or slow, they make a big difference and having a good quality bowling attack is really important. We do have some young bowlers in our side and a lot of our young bowlers have learnt a lot from this competition."

Warriors' batsmen struggled against the pace of Shaun Tait who picked up three for 13. "We use Tait when we need a wicket, he's our attack and shock bowler. Tait is our enforcer," Dravid said. "When he is bowling well it makes a big difference to the team. It's great to have him and Shane Waston performing well. Johan Botha is another critical member of our side; we also got a good spell out of Stuart Binny today, I though he bowled superbly.

"We may make plans but I really believe it's about execution," he said. "You can make all the plans you want but at the end of the day you're only as good as your bowlers who execute them, and I'm really happy that in the last couple of games our bowlers have done that."

Dravid said that Royals, who are currently fourth on the points table, behind Kolkata Knight Riders, Delhi Daredevils and Mumbai Indians, needed to win a majority of their remaining matches to secure a berth in the play-offs. "We have four more games to go and we must focus on playing well," he said. "If you win well it helps the net run rate but I think we must not worry about net run rate at this stage. With a couple of teams in contention it looks like 18 points will be needed [to make the play-offs] but we must not worry about what is needed but just play good cricket."

Dravid, who retired from international cricket in March this year, said that despite his retirement his routine hasn't changed. "It has not been very different for me as I just quit international cricket and a couple of weeks later I was playing the IPL," he said. "It has just been a continuation of my career. It will only be in June that I'll have more time. For me it hasn't felt any different at all, whatever I had been doing while playing international cricket, I've just continued with the same mindset and routine."